


we fall apart as it gets dark

by ultraviolentluv



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Drinking, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Repressed Feelings, Self-Esteem Issues, Stargazing, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 16:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolentluv/pseuds/ultraviolentluv
Summary: Jonathan and Steve have been hanging out every night since the Byers have come back to Hawkins for winter break. Steve slowly comes to a realization.





	we fall apart as it gets dark

**Author's Note:**

> if nothing else, let it be known that this fic was entirely inspired by "i love you" by billie eilish.
> 
> also, set post-season 3, about a year and a half after the byers move. hop never died and he's still in hawkins with el. january 1987, right after christmas 1986. because that's how time works.

It’s quiet tonight in Hawkins. For the past couple years, it’s felt like nobody would ever see a quiet moment again, but for now, it’s peaceful. Finally, Steve and Jonathan are on good terms –  _ actually  _ good terms, not just “I tolerate you because we have to team up even though you’re dating my ex” terms – and for the past couple weeks, they’ve been hanging out nearly nonstop. Robin jokes that Steve’s trying to replace her, but she knows he’s just glad to finally have more than one friend that’s his own age. Besides, it’s different with her. Robin and Steve are like conjoined twins at heart, and ever since they’ve uttered the words “best friends”, there’s no going back on that. Jonathan is more like a comfortable stranger. The more time Steve spends with him, the more he realizes he doesn’t really know him at all. But he knows he’d like to.

So, it’s quiet. Almost too quiet – much quieter than Steve likes to sit in when he’s alone with himself – but right now, it feels safe. He’s sitting on the front hood of his car with Jonathan, a bottle of beer in his hand. He uses the bottle opener on his keychain to pop the cap off, then turns to Jonathan to do the same for his.

“Thanks,” Jonathan says. They clink the necks of their bottles together and give each other a quick nod. Steve presses the mouth of the bottle to his lips and takes a gulp.

They look out past the hillside, down at the town. Streetlights illuminate the back roads that Steve’s driven around countless times before when he couldn’t go to sleep. They twinkle like the fireflies that are now long gone with the summertime. He pulls the sleeve of his sweater down to cover half of his hand so that the bottle doesn’t freeze his fingers in place with the January air. This beer tastes better than it usually does, he thinks.

“How’s your family doing?” Steve asks after a while. Jonathan turns to face him.

“They’re good,” he says. “Will’s glad to be back with his friends for winter break. And my mom’s being all cute trying to hide the fact she’s dating Hopper.”

“Your mom’s dating  _ Hopper?”  _ Steve starts laughing, and it rises up in his chest with a comforting warmth. “God. I should’ve seen that coming.”

“You really should have. They go out to Enzo’s like, every Friday. And he’s always stopping by to give her something back that she forgot. It’s kinda gross.” Jonathan snorts and takes a sip of his beer. “But they’re sweet. I’m glad my mom finally dropped the hard-to-get thing with him. He makes her really happy.”

Steve nods. “Your mom’s a great person. She deserves it.”

Jonathan tilts his head a little. “Yeah. Yeah, she does.”

Steve stares back at Jonathan for what feels like maybe a few seconds too long. He turns back towards the open air and closes his eyes. He leans back against the windshield and tilts his bottle back and forth in his hand, feeling the liquid swish back and forth gently. Something about sitting next to Jonathan makes him feel safe. He used to come up here and sit, drinking alone – reckless as all hell to drive home after two beers, but he was different back then – just to forget that he was… well, drinking alone. When he thinks about it, he’s felt lonely for most of his life. So he tries not to think about it because, well, this is a nice night and he’s  _ not  _ alone now and there’s no point in dwelling on the things that have already been set in stone. He has  _ real _ friends now and a group of children who rely on him probably way too much and vague parental figures in his life that care about his well being (Joyce was the first person to look at him and ask if he was dyslexic and it wasn’t until that point that he’d ever considered the possibility and, well, that diagnosis finally made his whole life make sense). And, most importantly right now, he has Jonathan.

He takes a deep breath and lets the chilly air ache inside his lungs. He’s been feeling like this a lot recently, aching. He assumes it must be because the alcohol they’re always sipping warms his chest up too much and contrasts harshly with the winter weather. There’s not much else it could be, anyways.

“I got a new record today,” Jonathan says, cutting the silence. Steve instantly flicks open his eyes and sees that Jonathan’s lain back with him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Not anything you’d like, but. The cover art reminds me of you a little bit.”

“Well, now I’m intrigued. What is it?”

Jonathan stretches his legs out in front of him. Steve doesn’t know why, but he watches. The little patches of ripped denim down his pant legs rip open just a little more, but Jonathan doesn’t seem to care. Steve thinks he might care entirely too much. He doesn’t say anything about it. “Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  _ Kicking Against the Pricks.”  _ He sighs and a little puff of condensation leaves his mouth, visible now with how cold it’s getting. “It’s got a guy on the cover with this crazy, fluffy hair.”

“Are you calling my hair crazy?” Steve teases.

Jonathan eyes his hair for a moment. Steve’s grown it out a little more, not anything like a mullet but definitely fuller and  _ fluffier  _ than he liked it to be in high school. Jonathan reaches forward and shoves his fingers into it, ruffling it up just to piss him off.

“Hey- hey! Watch it!” Steve says, playfully swatting at Jonathan’s hand. Jonathan drops his hand away instantly, cackling like a hen. Just like that, Steve feels his stomach  _ drop. _

It feels like the first time he saw the demogorgon, not knowing what the fuck was going on but knowing he needed to get the  _ hell  _ out of there. Or like when he and Robin first got caught by those Russian guards, just knowing even worse things were about to ensue. He doesn’t know where this feeling is coming from; everything’s been fine tonight. They’re talking. Jonathan’s  _ laughing,  _ and god knows he rarely lets himself laugh in front of other people. But he touched him and suddenly everything feels haunted, like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have. He doesn’t know why, but he feels that he shouldn’t have swatted Jonathan’s hand away.

Luckily, Jonathan keeps his hands to himself again and stares up towards the sky, so he doesn’t have to watch Steve go through all five stages of grief in reverse. Steve feels a little funny and checks the expiration date on his beer bottle. It doesn’t expire for another three months. He tenses his jaw up and looks up at the sky with Jonathan. A shiver races down his spine, racketing his shoulders a bit. Jonathan doesn’t seem to notice.

That’s one of the things Steve’s most grateful for. Jonathan is one of the smartest people he’s ever known – he’s memorized at least half of Henry David Thoreau’s bibliography and can analyze it for  _ days  _ if you let him – and yet, he never notices when Steve’s acting like a complete mess. Or, if he does, he keeps quiet about it. Unlike Robin, who’s always quick to call him an absolute dingus for tripping over his own feet when he’s stoned, or Nancy, who jumped just a little too fast at every chance she had to point out whatever grammar mistake he just made. Jonathan doesn’t make him feel dumb. Not that the girls try to, he knows they don’t, but he’s very much aware that of the group of older teens in their little monster hunting social circle, he’s the dimmest of them. Jonathan’s mixing right in at NYU, Nancy’s acing everything in her journalism courses at Ball State, Robin’s well on her way to triple-minoring alongside her double-major at Northwestern, and Steve… is still in Hawkins. He’s not in his parents’ house anymore, thank god, but it gets a little suffocating sometimes, being an unwanted receptionist at a dying paper company. Robin promises him that once she’s in her third year and she has to live in off-campus housing, they can get an apartment in Evanston together. He just has to hold out for another year and a half.

“What’s going on up there?” Jonathan’s voice says, ripping Steve out of himself. He meets his gaze and forces a little smirk onto his face.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles. He finishes off his beer and sets the empty bottle on top of the car roof. “Just thinking.”

“Uh-huh. The dangerous game,” Jonathan chimes. “‘Just thinking’ always means so much more than you want it to.”

“O-kay. Can you shut up with your English Lit 101,  _ please?”  _ Steve snorts and rolls his eyes. “I’m allowed to think about stuff while I stargaze, yeah?”

Jonathan looks like he wants to say something else, but he just nods and lets it be. Steve feels something heavy hang in the air between them, but he can’t place his finger on what it is. Maybe it’s just the typical guilt he feels every now and then with Jonathan. All those years he spent teasing him, mocking him, all for… what? A few more popularity points? He was already guaranteed prom king two years in a row. And even now, still, he doesn’t know why he ever hated Jonathan in the first place. He supposes he was just an easy target and he was desperate to cling to Tommy and Carol for so long. It’s all so stupid now. It always was.

“How are you and Nancy?” he asks. He’s not fully aware of the question leaving his lips, he doesn’t know why he’s asking, but it’s out there now.

“We’re good,” Jonathan says. He smiles a little, and Steve doesn’t know why his stomach suddenly has a sharp pain shooting through it. He got over Nancy a long time ago, or at least he thought he did. He still feels a little jealous every time he sees them together, even though nothing in him wants Nancy anymore. He’s happy for them. Happy for Jonathan. “Nancy really liked the sweater you got her for Christmas. She’s already worn it like, five times.”

Steve smiles. “I’m glad,” he says, quieter than he means to. His throat feels a little tight. “Did- do you like yours?”

“Yeah, of course I do. God knows I need some clothes that aren’t black or gray. I really like the red, it’s nice. It was nice of you.” He laughs again, and Steve only feels the knife in his stomach twist more. This is a familiar feeling, he knows he’s felt it before, but he can’t name it. He stares at Jonathan now, traces his jawline with his eyes, watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs out when he laughs. He feels a little dizzy, which he nearly blames on the alcohol, but then–

_ Oh. _

_ Oh, this isn’t good. _

Somehow, staring at the moonlight reflecting on Jonathan’s face has brought about the realization Steve’s needed this whole time.  _ Friends don’t stare at each other like this.  _ But that’s what they are, they’re friends. They’re  _ finally  _ becoming real friends. Yet, somehow, Steve’s managed to find a way to fuck it up.  _ Of course I have,  _ he tells himself. Doesn’t he always? Every relationship he’s ever had, he’s either ruined or put on thin fucking ice for a solid minute. Of course it’s no different with Jonathan. Still, it’s different in its own way. Because  _ this  _ has never happened.

He’s in love with him.

God, how could he be so  _ stupid?  _ How could he miss all the signs? Over and over and over again, they’ve come out to this very spot to stargaze, and over and over and over again, Steve’s found himself much more enthralled with the structure of Jonathan’s face and the way his knuckles flex around a beer bottle than he is with any stupid constellations. His laugh makes him feel happier than he’s felt in quite possibly his whole life, and he knows he must stare at his lips way more than any normal person should. He’s mad at himself, but not even for the reasons he might be expected to be. Deep down, he’s known he likes guys for a while now. Sure, he went through a spiral of self destruction over it for a little while in high school, but he’s over it now. Being friends with Robin has definitely helped, too. It’s just a part of his life – not one that anyone but Robin really knows about, but a part.

Still, he’s mad at himself. Not because Jonathan is a guy. Because he feels like he’s known for  _ so long.  _ Like loving him is so natural that he’s never stopped to think about it before. Like being in love with Jonathan Byers is just a thing that started happening one day and became a part of himself too swiftly for him to take note of. Back in high school, when he  _ was _ going through that phase of hating himself for liking guys just as much as girls, that’s when he started telling himself he hated Jonathan. Seeing him in the halls would fill him with a fluttery feeling that soon turned into dread which turned into inexplicable rage.  _ God.  _ This is why he’s the dumbest person he knows.

He knows he shouldn’t think like this, all self-deprecating like, but it’s the only thing he really knows. His father’s voice has been hammered into the back of his head, narrating and commenting on every single move he’s made since early childhood.  _ Stupid. Idiot. How could you not have seen this? How could you even let this happen? _

He pushes the feeling away and tries to focus on what this  _ means.  _ He loves Jonathan. He’s in love with him. Okay. He can handle that. He’s handled being in love when the other person wasn’t, back when Nancy broke his heart senior year. He knows it feels like fucking hell, but he’s lived through it before. Surely he can make it through again. He just needs Robin to make him a batch of the world’s finest pot brownies  _ stat. _

“This beer is really good,” Jonathan says, sounding a little far away. Steve realizes that he’s been staring at him for a while now and decides he should probably stop.

“Yeah, I really like it too,” he agrees. “Just a few more months and I’ll actually be able to buy it legally instead of ripping it off of other people.”

“Right. I always forget you’re a year older,” Jonathan hums. “Must be why Nancy always talked about how weird it was to have, like,  _ nobody  _ there her senior year.”

Steve nods and purses his lips. “Must be.”

He settles into another silence, but he lets himself find comfort in it this time. Nothing’s changed, he reminds himself. Him making this realization doesn’t mean Jonathan has to know, at least not for a long time. Maybe one day, he thinks, when they’re older and he’s dancing with Nancy and Jonathan at their wedding, it’ll come up naturally –  _ Oh, yeah, remember that time I had a crush on you for years and years? No? Oops, I guess I never told you. –  _ or maybe Robin will accidentally let it slip once he tells her and he’ll just have to live with the pain of losing another potentially great friendship. He shrugs it off. Whatever will be will be.

He loves Jonathan. He  _ loves  _ him. Nothing’s ever felt more freeing to come to terms with. It’s comfortable to say it in his head, over and over again.  _ I love you. I love you. I love you. _

“You cold yet?” he asks. Jonathan shakes his hand in the air.

“So-so.”

“We can sit in my car for a bit, maybe? I won’t drive yet, I promise. But I can turn on the heat.”  _ I love you. _

Jonathan nods and they both sit up and slide off the hood of the car together. Steve makes sure to grab the bottle off the roof and chucks it into the backseat as they climb inside. He starts up the car and puts his hands in front of the vents as hot air blasts out. Jonathan does the same, and their fingers touch for just a second. Steve feels that same pain in his stomach, but he breathes through it.  _ I love you. I love you.  _ The thought rolls in his head like a song, like a prayer.  _ I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. _

“Still just thinking?” Jonathan asks.

Steve realizes he must notice  _ something  _ is up by now. Still, he only nods. “Yeah,” he says. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing too bad.”

Jonathan seems satisfied enough with that. He stares forward through the windshield and hums quietly. Steve turns up the radio and finds the right station for him, the one that plays all local underground stuff.  _ I love you. I love you. I love you. _

He decides that he’ll focus on the hurt later, because right now, everything is the same and they’re having a good time, even if they both just nearly gave themselves frostbite in the name of staring at the sky like a couple of loons. For now, he’ll let himself have this moment, this car, this space. For now, this will do.

_ I love you. _

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr... is strangerlesbians


End file.
